e of the detail is quite fine, and
the lower columns are well proportioned; but the upper part is
ridiculously heavy and out of keeping with the rest, and inconceivably
ill-designed. The different parts also are ill put together and look as
if they had belonged to distinct buildings designed on a totally
different scale.

[Sidenote: Evora University.]

Not much need be said of the Jesuit University founded at Evora by the
Cardinal in 1559 and suppressed by the Marques de Pombal. Now partly a
school and partly an orphanage, the great hall for conferring degrees is
in ruins, but the courtyard with its two ranges of galleries still
stands. The court is very large, and the galleries have round arches and
white marble columns, but is somehow wanting in interest. The church too
is very poor, though the private chapel with barrel vault and white
marble dome is better, yet the whole building shows, like the Graca
porch, that classic architecture was not yet fully understood, for Diogo
de Torralva had not yet finished his cloister at Thomar, nor had Terzi
begun to work in Lisbon.

When Dom Joao III. died in 1557 he was succeeded by his grandson
Sebastiao, who was then only three years old. At first his grandmother,
Dona Catharina, was regent, but she was thoroughly Spanish, and so
unpopular. For five years she withstood the intrigues of her
brother-in-law, Cardinal Henry, but at last in 1562 retired to Spain in
disgust. The Cardinal then became regent, but the country was really
governed by two brothers, of whom the elder, Luis Goncalves da Camara, a
Jesuit, was confessor to the young king.

Between them Dom Sebastiao grew up a dreamy bigot whose one ambition was
to lead a crusade against the Moors--an ambition in which popular rumour
said he was encouraged by the Jesuits at the instigation of his cousin,
Philip of Spain, who would profit so much by his death.

Since the wealth of the Indies had begun to fill the royal treasury, the
Cortes had not been summoned, so there was no one able to oppose his
will, when at last an expedition sailed in 1578.

At this time the country had been nearly drained of men by India and
Brazil, so a large part of the army consisted of mercenaries; peculation
too had emptied the treasury, and there was great difficulty in finding
money to pay the troops.

Yet the expedition started, and landing first at Tangier afterwards
moved on to Azila, which Mulay Ahmed, a pretender to the Moorish
umbr